


Nothing Was As I Expected It To Be

by LittleGirlLostExplores



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: At least not onscreen, But I think totally worth it, Cathartic fic, Grief, Grief but not death, Hopeful Ending, M/M, SAD FIC. SERIOUSLY., nebulous details
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7141976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGirlLostExplores/pseuds/LittleGirlLostExplores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not a soul in the room was prepared for what he said.  But all of them felt better for it.  Who would have thought the self-professed carnie drop-out idiot with a bow would show himself to be a wordsmith of the highest order?  </p><p>It's just a shame that this was what brought it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Was As I Expected It To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Well [Twangcat ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twangcat) needed help writing and so I volunteered to help with a writing exercise.
> 
> And then I ended up with this. It was pretty self-indulgently cathartic but I feel like it might help some other people out there cleanse their emotional pallet. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Clint imagined what his children must be seeing. God they were amazing. His kids. Jesus the things they had done. The things they still had left to do. All three of them standing tall in a world that tried to crush their spirits on a daily basis. They had gone to college. COLLEGE. His babies. And they passed with flying colors, all sorts of colored tassels around their necks when they walked across those stages. God he was forever being impressed by them. Each of them so strong. What must they be thinking. 

Clint looked out across the crowd. It was a small room, intentionally so. Homey and warm earthy colors, thick heavy walls of mingling stone and honey and walnut colored wood. Small like he'd wanted. Just enough room for the really important people. Everyone else would have their day, have their piece of him but today was just for the people he shared his life with. And god there were still more of them around than either of them had ever imagined. Theirs was a dangerous business no doubt. But it felt good, it had always felt good. 

It was time to dig in. Focus. People needed him. And he needed to do his job, his favorite job in the whole world. Not his dangerous job which was fun but his favorite job that he was always shocked to find he had a talent for, the job that satisfied him deep down inside where he had always been hollow and hungry. That was a job he'd been afraid he would lose after this but it didn't change....just...shifted....closed in and filled up the space that was left empty. He could still do this, he needed to do this, to be this for the rest of his life and now he wasn't scared that it could be taken away from him. It couldn't. He had empirical evidence. He was free of that fear. Much though he'd give to have it back all things considered. 

God, look at them. Hair so blonde. He'd hoped they would be darker but that blonde hair was tenacious. He'd gotten his wish with all of their dark eyes though and they had that serious look of his perfectly. All three of their faces shining with that same look. He thought it'd torture him to see it. It didn't. 

What must they be seeing right now.

Clint thought about all of this as he stood and straightened his suit.

As he walked up to the podium.

As he looked out on the crowd of people he loved so much. So much.

But not the person he loved more than anything.

That person was below him, in front and just out of sight from where he stood. Clint thinks that this must be intentional. A way to allow this space to stay safe when doing something so hard.

Clint looked at his children. His eldest son and his two beautiful girls. All three strong and leaning into each other, lending and sharing their strength to shore the others up. His children. All they can see right now is Clint in a dark suit, all they can see is the pain in this moment, Clint is sure of it without asking. He takes a breath and prayer and opens his mouth.

 

"So much about this experience is surprising. I know that's not what you're expecting me to say. But it's true. Almost nothing about this is the way I expected it to be. I am glad to be standing here with all of you today. None of us lead lives of quiet or peace. None of us were office workers. Every one of us had danger in our lives, whether it was something we actively sought out or we had the misfortune to marry someone who battled the things that go bump in the night, the real things. So I'm glad that when I look out across this room today so many of you are still here to look back at me. And that so many new, smaller people, have joined us over the years. Eventually they all claimed to have gotten bigger but I don't see it. 

Yes nothing is as I expected it to be. I thought that planning this day would be heartbreaking but it was... satisfying and almost exciting, to get everything just so, exactly the way he would have wanted it. I got to check things off as I created an experience he would be proud of, that he would have felt comforted and honored by. I....had the advantage of knowing this day was coming. So did we all. And over the past few months I have seen all of you more than I have in years and that has been beautiful. I thought, at the beginning, that there would have been more tears. I'm glad there weren't. I'm so glad that tears were interspersed with laughter. With things that started with "I never told you, but..." I'm so glad that fences were mended, the few small ones that had been broken and that I had to clear out the spare bedroom to fit all of the treasures and toys curios that you brought because you knew he just HAD to see them. I'm glad I got the opportunity to learn to cook from a master and that the kids now each have a 401k and a roth IRA and have a step by step guide and packet on how to handle their retirement funds, mortgages, and paying for their children's' college. 

I thought that this would be harder. I thought that I would have to give up loving him. I thought that I would have to let go and give part of myself away. Lock part of myself away and lose the key and live with the pain of a lost limb forever. Bucky I hear you making that joke, at least have enough class not to go for bad puns until I'm off the stage yeah? I thought that's how it would be. It isn't. I don't have to give up anything. I can keep loving him until the day I die and I will. I didn't lose a limb. I just.....hung up the phone with my soulmate. He'll call back. And when I'm done with my op I'll go home to him. I miss him. I do. But I miss him like he's in the other room because I know him and I love him and I know what he thinks about every damn thing in this world....because he told me. And because we fit. Our puzzle pieces lined up. We were made for each other. Not by god and not by fate but by ourselves. Our pasts, our experiences, our love. We shaped ourselves around one another so I will never really be without him. 

We have three beautiful children. Not so little anymore. But I look at them and I think look what you did. How did you manage to make such wonderful people and also be my everything at the same time? You're amazing. And they're amazing. And they've been amazing every step of the way. They never shied away when I couldn't stand to be in my own skin, when I thought the pain of watching this carcrash in slow motion was going to eat me up inside and leave me like a tree the winter wind whips through. They never kept their pain to themselves either, never tried to be the stoic shoulder for me to cry on because that would have driven me crazy with worry and solitude in my pain. They shared every moment of fear and heartbreak with each other and with me and jesus they were each so brave....they just went right up and talked to him about it. They said I'm sad and I'm angry and I'm scared and I don't want you to go. What am I to do with all of these things? And they sat at his bedside and listened and talked and theorized and philosophized because I married a smart man, and our babies are smarter than that and they have never known any different, you see they glide through conversations on deep and intricate complex subject matter as if it were the morning paper, it's a wonder to see I'll tell you all, but they sat there and talked with him. They talked it out like they had when they were little and they didn't know how to go about approaching a problem. And he's always taken those small problems given over to him by small hands with no less than gravity he showed for these problems. And they were comforted and he was comforted and they're mine. All of them. They're mine and I'm so glad I got to be theirs. I got to be his. And I am so grateful. 

You all know, that he liked to make lists. He loved organization even though it was hard for him. He liked to make lists because he said he found them comforting. Well I found him one night, just sitting there in bed, writing himself a list. Looking for all the world as if he was pondering the universe and had figured out how to reach the stars. And I sat down by him and I asked him what he was doing. Making a list he said. I know that you smartass what kind of list. And he said I'm making a list of what you can do with all the free time you'll have. You hate being idle and it lets you think about things that make you sad and you'll never think about it until it's too late, you know you won't Clint and you'll need a plan. So I'm making you a list. You're going to have so much fun! And he gave me this blinding smile. Because he was really that excited for me. He couldn't wait for me to have all these new experiences. Try all these things I never made time for before. And you know what? I'm excited too. I'm excited to do all of those things...because think of all the stories I'll have to tell him when I'm done with this op.

None of this is like I expected it to be. My children are devastated. And I am broken, shattered by the smallest things. It's not the big things that are hard to take. Those are the things we're used to. It's realizing that I have to put that grape jelly back on the shelf because no one will eat it because we all know it's gross and Papa was weird to eat it. It's lack of any god damn idea of what to do when I take out our winter clothes this year and his are all mixed in with mine like always. It's the fact that I have no idea who I'm going to take as my plus one to graduations, weddings, baptisms, bat mitzvahs. I've never once, not ONCE, gotten myself up for temple, did you know that? He always set an alarm when he left or called me, or set the alarm clock the night before. Its that I'm going to spend alot of time wandering around florist shops because I have no idea what flowers are appropriate to bring to the cemetery and dammit yes Phil I KNOW it's against Jewish custom but you LOVE flowers so what am I supposed to do? It's in the hollow ugly little thoughts, the crazy, heartbreaking little thoughts that creep in at night in the dark that I can't seem to let go of. It's the crazy man in the back of my head that's still so deliriously in love with this man that he wonders, what if he's cold? What if he's cold and lonely where he is? What if that episode of Dr Who is right, thank god we buried him but what if it's cold there and he's needs his socks. He can't see without his glasses. Has he found Mama and his father yet? What if he's lost? And god he's TERRIBLE at stringed instruments, he won't be able to play a harp for shit. What if they make fun of him? What if he can't reach all of his wings to brush them, he got that scar on his side 15 years ago in Bali and he never could twist his arm behind his back completely correctly after. 

It's the little things they say that mean the most, that hurt the most, that heal the most. And I know its true because after this I will sit down. I will listen to the people he loved talk about him. I will walk down that aisle with him and my kids. I will get in the car with him for the last time. I will open the door for him for the last time. I will follow the customs of our people with everyone I care about at my side. And at the end I will turn my back and walk away from him for the last time. But I will be the luckiest man I know because I will get to keep him and see him in all those little things for the rest of my life. In my children and our home. In our friends and projects. In our possessions and our memories and our legacies. In the turning of the seasons and the changing of the tides. In people, in nature, in life. I will have him and hold him all the days of my life. And I wasn't expecting that."

**Author's Note:**

> If this feels particularly real or intense it is not because I am any great author, it is simply because I have recently lost a family member and sometimes writing IS the best therapy. It's certainly the cheapest. :-)


End file.
